


the heavens are black

by anetherealmelody



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Dead TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Mentioned TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Parent Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot and Technoblade and TommyInnit are Siblings, those were the days, throwback to the l'manberg era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 07:47:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29897898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anetherealmelody/pseuds/anetherealmelody
Summary: Dream killed Tommy in the duel for L'Manberg's freedom. His family tries to stitch itself back together without its core thread.
Relationships: & dream & sapnap & george lol, & tubbo, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson
Comments: 9
Kudos: 90





	the heavens are black

**Author's Note:**

> i have no idea what this is. i wrote it a pretty long time ago and decided to post it bc i just want to kinda dump all my un-posted fics on here so that i don't forget to post them in the future. 
> 
> picks up after tommy and dream's initial duel on the bridge for l'manberg's freedom
> 
> warning // major character death(s)

It’s too quiet. 

They all know it. The sun beats down on their scalps and shoulders in savage, unforgiving strokes, and they could speak to fill the silence, but their words wouldn’t cure the quiet. It would still be quiet, and they know that, so they won’t, they won’t, because nothing would change. It would still be quiet. 

It’s too quiet.

None of them talk. 

They sit. The grass is spiny and cruel. Each piece is a sharp knife against their skin—poking, prodding, irritating. In a different universe, someone would point it out, would make a joke: _It’s like you, Tommy. You never leave us alone._

But this universe is theirs, and this universe is far, far too quiet. 

///

Fundy is the first to move.

“I’m leaving,” he says, and they see this for what it is. He is not leaving this clearing, this hill; he is not leaving for a little while. He is _leaving_ , leaving. 

He is not coming back. 

No one blames him. The wind is dry and suffocating. Everyone’s hair floats around their faces. It might’ve been peaceful, once, in a different universe, but there is blood on their hands, now, and everyone wants to run, run, run— _they should have run away_ —and never look back; everyone wants to leave and never look back. 

Only Fundy is brave enough to do so. 

“I’m leaving,” he repeats, and his voice is hollow, absent. 

He turns, and he walks down the hill with knives for grass. He walks past the stone that no one remembers digging into the ground because they’ve blocked it from their memory, and he turns his head to look the other way so he doesn’t have to see the inscription. 

No one remembers who inscribed it. Just that it’s there, now, carved in a shaky hand that might be Wilbur’s as easily as it might be Niki’s or Tubbo’s or Fundy’s or Jack’s. 

_Tommy._

///

“You should eat,” Niki whispers, and no one knows who she’s talking to.

Jack stands up. 

“I’ve got to go,” he says, and walks away.

Niki watches him go.

He leaves tear stains in his footsteps, but there are tear stains and bloodstains all over this bladed hill, and it’s impossible to count one from the other. Niki sets the soup down. 

Jack is not coming back. They know this.

The light of the day is dying, but the light died from everyone’s eyes days ago, and if there’s no light in anyone’s eyes, what’s the point of the sun? What’s the point of the sun? If there’s no light in anyone’s lives, what’s the point of the day? 

What’s the point of the day?

They don’t know why they’re still here. They don’t know why they’re still here when he’s _not_ —when he’s gone off to some higher plane, some ascended dimension, to live in perfection or fire or surrounded by angels with halos or demons with axes, or wherever one goes after this life. They don’t know what they’re supposed to do, now—how they’re supposed to go on—how they’re supposed to tell the people they know need to know—how they’re supposed to—

The sun sinks. They sit. They stare at nothing and think of nothing, but stare at stone—what used to be everything—and think of stone and think of everything.

They want to move. They cannot. It’s too quiet. 

It’s too quiet.

///

Niki leaves.

It’s days later, and she apologizes profusely—she has to find Fundy, has to make sure he’s okay on his own, has to make sure he hasn’t done anything stupid, rash; she is the only one of them strong, she holds them together when they’ve long forgotten how, when they cannot fend for themselves; she is the glue, but she leaves. They do not hear her apologies. 

It is just them, now, sitting on this hill. This horrible, horrible hill, with blood red leaves falling from the trees like the scarlet stream that poured from Tommy’s head, from Tommy’s arms, from everywhere, because Dream did not miss and they should have known that Dream did not miss, because it’s Dream, and Dream never misses. 

Dream never misses.

Dream never misses, and now the sun is gone and Fundy is gone and Jack is gone and Niki is gone and it’s just them on this hill, this damned hill, with a pile of blood-red leaves and blades of grass and a polished, pristine headstone, with a crude carving. And they were never meant to be this close, but now they’re all each other has.

In a different universe, they are friends. They are friends who are friends because Tommy is Tubbo’s friend, and Wilbur comes to love Tubbo through Tommy, comes to realize how amazing Tubbo is through Tommy. In a different universe, Wilbur doesn’t cry with his head in Tubbo’s lap, doesn’t hug Tubbo until the dawn comes, doesn’t wish that it wasn’t Tubbo with him, but Tommy, _Tommy_ , doesn’t pretend that it’s Tommy in his arms, in his grip, in his life. 

But this universe is theirs, and their sobs are loud, but the universe doesn’t care and never has, and they sink, slowly, toward the edge of the horizon, following the sun to eternal damnation. 

It’s too quiet. 

///

News travels quicker than light, and they don’t know how or why, but they are not meant to, they don’t have to, because the universe has never tried to explain anything to them. It takes relentlessly, selfishly, and gives nothing in return—they are leaves on a vine, and one by one they are falling, falling, trickling off into an endless, bottomless void of black, and the winds of the universe encourage their descent.

They are found on their hill. Tubbo is a shell of what he was a week ago; Wilbur doesn’t look any better. The bags under their eyes look like the blood on their hands, if the sunlight’s angle hits just right. They are violet, and Tubbo is snow-pale, bone-thin, and Wilbur should have fed him, should have cared for him, but he can’t find it in himself to care.

“What the hell happened here?” Phil demands, crouching immediately in front of the two boys. He does not see the stone. He has not seen it. They know this: if he had, he would be crouched there, instead, weeping over what is lost, weeping over what will not be ever again. Wilbur and Tubbo can be saved.

Tommy cannot. 

But he does not see the stone, and he pulls bread from his pockets and splits it in half and forces it into the boys’ hands. He moves to one side, just for a moment, to take out his flask of water, and it clears their line of sight.

Standing before the stone is Technoblade. His shoulders are stiff, rigid; his hands are fisted, clenched.

He has seen the stone.

In a different universe, the blades of grass would be soft and welcoming against their skin, and Phil would have dinner on the table and Tommy would wrap an arm around Tubbo’s shoulder and Technoblade would mouth off about how Tommy was a terrible influence, about how Tubbo should stay as far away as he possibly could, and Wilbur would play his guitar in the last shards of golden sunlight until Phil called him inside to set the table, since experience had long taught him the other three would never help. 

But this universe is theirs, so Phil urges Tubbo to drink water, but Techno’s silence is loud, and, after a moment, it compels Phil to turn around.

The flask slips through his hand. It rolls down the knives of grass.

He collapses onto his knees.

The world is still, quiet, and it might be out of respect, in a different universe, but in theirs, it is only out of spite.

It’s too quiet.

///

They leave him on the hill.

Phil makes them. Hours pass, and the tears haven’t gotten them any closer to vengeance, any closer to health, so Phil pulls them up and heaves them bodily down the hill. 

Phil is strong. He carries himself and he carries Wilbur and he carries Tubbo, and he urges them gently into the house.

They leave him on the hill. 

Phil tries to prod him onward, tries to get him to come with, but he is already carrying himself and Wilbur and Tubbo, and he doesn’t have another hand. 

It doesn’t matter. Techno has long learned to carry himself.

But when they leave him on the hill, he sinks onto his knees. He bends until his forehead touches the stone. It is cold. It is chilled. It makes sense for night has fallen, the sun is gone, and stone doesn’t heat itself. 

His brother is under this mound of stone. It’s insulting, almost—degrading. Tommy is too vivacious to have a bland stone speak for him. He is too lively, too _a_ live, too pure.

But he _isn’t_ , is he? Because he _was_ , but he _isn’t_ anymore _._ Now he lies under this stone, and he _is_ nothing, but he _was_ everything.

In a different universe, Techno would walk away laughing, and Phil would hold Tommy and Tubbo until the morning dawned, until the blood on his diamond sword washed away in rain. In a different universe, a nation would explode and a hundred people would die, and Tommy would hate, _hate_ , his brothers, but, more than anything, he would hate himself for still loving them despite everything they’d done. In a different universe, it would be Wilbur’s stone before their eyes, and no one would remember who dug it, who carved it, who filled it, because no one could bear to, and Techno and Tommy would make up, because Tommy still loved him, despite what he’d done, despite all he’d made him suffer. In a different universe, Techno would be surprised, but he wouldn’t be, because that’s just what Tommy does—loves without reason, without purpose.

But this universe is theirs, and the stone in front of his eyes slices his soul open.

The leaves of blood fall, and the blades of grass cut his feet, and the wind whips around his head, and his mind is six feet under and anger is boiling in his chest—boiling, bubbling, overflowing—and soon he will enact revenge—it is all he knows, all he is capable of; it is all he can do, so he will, he must—but for now, he can only stare.

He stays on the hill.

It’s too quiet.

///

Tubbo is either sleeping or feigning sleep. Wilbur’s sobbed confession to Phil tells Techno all he needs to know.

He slides his sword out of its sheathe and turns on his heel.

“Techno,” Phil says.

Techno pushes through the door.

In a different universe, Phil helps him renounce violence. They move far away from all temptation—settle in a house of ice, breed a hoard of baby turtles, eat dinner under gentle torchlight, try to forget every fragment of their pasts. In a different universe, Techno ignores his violent inclinations and stops to listen to Phil, stops to hear his plea: _Please, Tech, stay; they need you, we need you, please don’t leave; we’ll sort through all of this together._

But this universe is theirs, and Dream is to blame. 

This universe is theirs, and it’s far, far too quiet without Tommy.

///

“Techno left,” Phil says.

The fear in Wilbur’s eyes is rawer than the anger in Phil’s heart. He is scared, _scared_ —he already lost Tommy, he cannot bear to lose Techno, too.

“He’s going to kill Dream,” Phil whispers.

Wilbur’s posture relaxes.

In Wilbur’s eyes, the fire dwindles, the steel softens. That is a worthy cause. He stares at the ground and pretends things are different, pretends everything is okay.

Tubbo slumps from his room.

“I dropped the—I dropped a glass,” he says quietly.

Phil smiles sadly, kindly, because Phil took Tubbo on without a second thought, but Tommy is gone, and Techno has left, and a friend is lovely, but no replacement for a son. 

“I’ll grab a towel,” Phil says. 

He leaves the room.

Tubbo hovers in the threshold.

In a different universe, Wilbur would hold Tubbo and Tommy close and whisper that _It’ll all be over soon,_ that _Freedom is worth it_ , that _We’ll all get out of here alive. I promise._

But this universe is theirs, and two of them are alive, but the third is buried under a polished stone.

Echoes of Tommy’s voice pinball through their minds. Tubbo hovers, but they do not speak to each other, because they have nothing to say. 

It’s too quiet.

///

Techno comes back with blood on his hands.

They don’t mention it. They have blood on their hands, too—who are they to say anything? Phil looks at him and looks at him and wonders, but does not say anything.

In a different universe, Techno and Dream duel in front of millions of people for the prize of _pride_ , not for the burden of vengeance.

But this universe is theirs, and Techno’s coat is streaked with scarlet blood. Phil helps him out of it, takes it to the river, and rinses it until his hands start chafing. 

The blood doesn’t come out. He lets go of the coat. It floats down the water.

He watches it go.

It’s too quiet.

///

Tubbo doesn’t leave.

They don’t ask him to; they don’t want him to. He doesn’t want to, either, but he does, sometimes, because the silence is full of all the things that Tommy used to say, and sometimes, when it is too quiet, he wants to follow Fundy or Jack or Niki—run away, far away—to a place with no memories, with no sorrow, even though he knows that it is inescapable. He has fallen from grace, off the vine; spiraled down, down, into the void, and he is not strong enough to crawl back up.

It doesn’t matter. If Tommy is in the void, he wants to be there, too.

In a different universe, Tubbo and Tommy avoid the void altogether. They run away when the first breezes of _independence_ dance from Wilbur’s lips, they run away when the first spots of blood stain their uniform, when they realize the discs are far less important than each other, when they understand that running isn’t always cowardice, but strength—only by setting aside their pride can they gain true freedom.

But this universe is theirs, and Tommy was Tubbo’s family, but this is his family, now, and they take him in, and they are kind, and they are thoughtful, but Tubbo hears the sobs they try to silence, hears the words that go unspoken— _he’s gone. he’s gone. he’s gone. he’s gone._ —hears the despair, the hopelessness in every breath they take. He hears it because he feels it—in his own sobs, in his own words, in his own breaths. 

He hears it in the quiet.

It’s too quiet.

///

There is a knock on their door.

The others are sleeping, so Phil opens it.

He stares.

The man on the other side of the threshold says nothing. He stands, and he stares, and his grief is penned out on his face, but the sentiments never make it past his lips.

He holds a cracked mask in one hand.

His silence is loud.

It’s too quiet.

“You’re alive,” Phil says.

“I’m sorry,” Dream rasps.

Phil stares.

He doesn’t know what to say, what he can say. He’s yet to fit the pieces together when sleepy footsteps approach behind him.

They pause. They see the person at the door. 

They speed up.

Wilbur shoves Phil out of the way and shoves Dream down the porch.

“Get _out!”_ he shouts. “Get—get _out!_ You are never, _never_ welcome here—you are—you—”

Dream nods. He walks away.

“You _killed_ him!” Wilbur continues—yelling, screaming. Phil’s efforts at stopping him are futile. “You—you _killed_ him. You took him _away_ , you—”

Phil grabs Wilbur’s wrist in a vice, tugging him back to reality before he enters a fight he cannot—and could not ever—win.

Wilbur stills, freezes—breaths sharp, heavy, loud in the silence. “You killed Tommy,” he whispers wetly.

Dream drops his mask. He leans down, picks it up, pauses, and continues walking.

In a different universe, he looks back. He says that he admired Tommy, that he respected him, that he never meant to kill him. That he _did_ miss his shot, even though he never misses, because he was aiming for the shoulder and he struck Tommy in the heart.

But this universe is theirs, and Dream missed, and Dream doesn’t say another word.

Techno rushes out of his room, demanding to know the cause of commotion. Tubbo gapes blearily at Techno when he realizes Dream is alive, Dream is alive, Dream is still alive, _why isn’t Dream dead?_ Tubbo—whole, pure _Tubbo—_ angry because there wasn’t violence, because there wasn’t vengeance, because there wasn’t death.

They turn to Techno for answers. His eyes are distant. They hold multitudes that the others cannot even begin to comprehend—experiences, thoughts, words, feelings. They look at Techno, and they don’t see mercy. They don’t see pity.

They see rage.

They don’t know the reason Techno didn’t kill Dream, and Techno doesn’t tell them.

The silence is loud.

It’s too quiet.

///

He is not alone.

He is furious, at first—this is _his_ spot. This is _their_ spot. The person is invading, intruding. Unwelcome.

He approaches with a shout on his tongue, a scream in his throat.

It dies in its place. He does not know why.

“Tubbo,” Sapnap says, standing, scratching the back of his neck. “I didn’t—I didn’t know you’d—sorry, I’ll—I mean, I’ll just leave you to…you know.”

There are tears on Sapnap’s cheeks.

And Sapnap isn’t Tommy, so he shouldn’t be at this bench, at this place— _their_ place—but Sapnap isn’t Dream, either, so he wordlessly sits down.

Sapnap blinks at him for a long moment, trying to interpret his silence.

Tubbo stares at the sunset.

Sapnap sits down.

No music discs play. No laughs ring down the hill, into the horizon. No banter soothes the tension, fills the silence.

It’s too quiet.

///

“I thought I told him to leave,” he says quietly, dangerously.

George’s forehead scrunches. “I thought he—I mean, he told me he was. Leaving. And he—he left. Nobody’s seen him for days.”

“I saw him yesterday,” he says. 

George’s eyes widen. “What? Where?”

“At Wilbur’s house,” he says darkly.

George slumps in something like relief. His posture doesn’t feature the wary strain most people have when they’re talking to _Technoblade—_ the Blood God, the Prince of the Antarctic Empire—but he is tense all the same. 

He is worried. About a monster.

Techno wonders if he knows.

“I spared his life,” Techno says lowly. “Yours, too.” He tightens his grip on his sword. “I will not tolerate another visit. I will not even tolerate seeing him again.”

“That’s out of my control,” George says, laughing a little incredulously. “It’s _Dream_ , I can’t control—”

“I will kill him,” Techno says, with a finality that appeases the fire in his heart. “I will _kill_ him. Do you understand?”

“No,” George says. “No, I don’t understand any of this. I don’t—I don’t—it was over _land!_ It was a duel on a _bridge_ , in the middle of _nowhere_ —”

Techno does not want to hear. He turns and walks away.

George keeps on speaking, eyes wild, hands flipping, and he is talking to himself, but he is really talking to his best friend, who is hidden silent underneath a dug out floorboard.

Techno doesn’t know. He only hears the echoes of George’s words like the ravings of a mad man—which he may be becoming, regardless of the being under his floor—as he turns down and out the hall.

He opens the door. Pushes through. Sees a butterfly land on a flower before him. Sees a wilted mushroom, a rotting leaf.

It’s too quiet.

///

He stands.

Sapnap looks up, question painted in his eyes.

“Goodbye,” he says.

Sapnap frowns. “I can—Tubbo, I—”

“Don’t,” he says. “Don’t call me that.”

“It’s your name,” Sapnap says blankly.

“Not to you,” he says. 

Sapnap swallows. His eyes fall to the grass.

“I won’t be back here,” Tubbo says.

“Where are you going?”

“Haven’t decided.”

“What are you doing?”

Tubbo’s eyes harden. His grief has morphed. 

In a different universe, his grief morphs into cowardice, into betrayal, not into rage. In another universe, he hides behind a suit and pretends he can be president. He cuts contact with the person he loves most in the world—with his _best friend_ —because it is easier than admitting he is failing, he is losing. It is easier than setting aside his pride.

He sets more than pride aside now. 

He sets everything aside.

He cares nothing for his life. He cares nothing for anyone’s. 

“You’ll see,” he says, and walks away.

Sapnap stares after him.

It’s too quiet.

///

“I don’t understand,” Niki says.

“You shouldn’t have come back,” Wilbur says. 

His eyes are distant. It scares her more than any duel, more than any arrow, because she loved Tommy but she _loves_ Wilbur—he is her best friend. Her brother. She can’t. lose him too.

She can’t.

_You already have_.

She grabs his hand under the table. Squeezes it. She needs an anchor, a promise that he won’t leave, that he won’t abandon her, that he’ll always stay—

He pulls away. 

He wrings his hands together like he’s trying to wash something off—sweat, tears, blood. Her touch. Memories, maybe. She doesn’t know. She can’t read him. Not now. Not like she used to.

She opens her mouth. She closes it. She has everything to say. 

She has nothing to say.

The room is suffocating. The fireplace is blazing with a heat that consumes the room—muddles thought, blurs vision, burns away tears. She stares at him, but her eyes are dry, and the fire is loud, and she cannot think of anything to say.

She does not see irritation in his eyes. He does not want her to leave. He sits at the table with his feet on the ground and his hands twisting in his lap and his gaze on the flames and there is no anger in his eyes. There is not even grief.

She looks. She looks harder. There must be grief—it is all she feels. It is not even close to what he must feel—his brother, his _brother_ , how can a word like _grief_ even begin to suffice—

He stands abruptly. His chair topples over and clatters against the tile.

“I’ve got to go,” he says, and turns toward the door.

He does not look at her. She is thankful—she does not want to see what she now know resides in his eyes—nothing.

_Nothing_.

“Where?” she asks, standing, too, because she _cannot_ lose him, she _can’t_ —

“Anywhere else,” he says.

“Why?” she whispers.

He halts in the doorway. His shoulders tense for the briefest moment, and then the omnipotent apathy returns.

“It’s too quiet,” he says.

///

The wind is sharp. It hurts his eyes. Blood drips down his cheek.

He stabs the sword into the ground. 

Techno stares.

“I finished what you couldn’t,” he says. 

Without another word, he walks through the yard’s gate.

“Tubbo,” Techno calls. “Tubbo, you—did you—you _killed_ him?”

Tubbo turns around a corner.

Techno stares at the sword in the ground.

It’s too quiet.

///

Phil taps his foot on the ground. 

“He isn’t coming,” Techno says. 

Phil looks at him sharply. “What do—”

The door pushes open. 

“Tubbo,” Phil says, slumping in relief. “I was worried.”

Tubbo sits beside Niki. Wilbur sits beside Techno. Phil sits at the head.

“Dig in,” Phil says, smiling falsely.

There are bloodstains on Tubbo’s shirt.

Techno doesn’t put any food on his plate. Niki puts a roll on Wilbur’s plate, but he doesn’t touch it. Tubbo takes an apple. 

They sit in silence.

In a different universe—

It doesn’t matter. 

This universe is theirs. 

This universe is theirs, and—and—

“He’s _dead_ ,” Tubbo says, face shattering. “He’s—he’s _dead_. I killed him. I—I—he’s _gone_ —”

“You didn’t kill him,” Phil whispers. “Dream—”

Phil stops. His eyes widen.

He sees the blood on Tubbo’s shirt.

Tubbo sobs. Wilbur joins him moments later. Phil stares at his plate. Niki stares at hers.

Techno rises from the table. He has to get out—the absence is too loud. The company is too quiet.

The company is too quiet.

He goes outside. He stares at the sky. There are no stars. There is no moon. The heavens are black.

The world is blacker. 

The heavens. What help they’ve been, all this time—snatching a _sixteen_ year old from this life, from this war. Making him play soldier in a fight he could never win. Making him sacrifice everything, _everything_ —his _life_ —for his freedom, for his brother’s freedom, for his best friend’s freedom—

No, the heavens are useless. The heavens are quiet.

The world is quieter.

///

Thirteen miles away, tears spill onto a white mask. There are no signs of struggle. Only of guilt. Only of acceptance.

"George," a voice says, and it's familiar, beyond the haze, but the haze is omnipresent. _"_ What— _"_

A sharp inhale. A sharper curse. His reaction is violent. He yanks Dream's body from his arms and yells at it. He does not cry.

George does. He curls back into himself. His tears drop into the grass. It is cruel and spiny under his skin. It is tainted with blood.

Sapnap yells. He cries.

It is too quiet.

**Author's Note:**

> currently trying to find writing motivation lol so i'm hoping posting will get me back into the flow of things. hope you liked it! :)


End file.
